


Twenty Minutes

by mizvoy



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25404190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizvoy/pseuds/mizvoy
Summary: Captain Braxton (from the television episodes "Future's End" and "Relativity") decides to punish Kathryn Janeway for her temporal sins and, in the process, changes the direction of her life—twice!
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47





	Twenty Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published in 2012. I have made some minor changes in preparing it for this site; however, the plot remains unchanged.

Disclaimer: Star Trek _Voyager_ belongs to CBS/Paramount. No infringement intended.

A/N: This story was written for VAMB's 2012 Secret Summer exchange. Many thanks to Koneia for the story idea: write something that involves Captain Braxton. I had no choice but to do a time travel story, and I hope that, unlike Captain Janeway, my readers do not end up with a headache!

Summary: Captain Braxton (from the television episodes "Future's End" and " _Relativity_ ") decides to punish Kathryn Janeway for her temporal sins and, in the process, changes the direction of her life—twice!

Twenty Minutes

By mizvoy

**Part One**

**San Francisco: March 1, 2378 (1530 hours)**

Captain Luca Braxton cradled a small black orb in his hand as he considered where to place it in Kathryn Janeway's quarters. At this moment, the Temporal Integrity Commission was finding Janeway not guilty for using Admiral Janeway’s advanced technology to bring _Voyager_ home sixteen years early. To Braxton’s dismay, they labeled the event "insignificant" to the timeline, declaring that nothing done in the future by _Voyager_ 's 147 surviving crew members created a temporal paradox serious enough to warrant a correction.

Janeway was once again escaping the consequences of her criminal behavior, and Braxton was unwilling to let her avoid punishment.

He placed the orb in the middle of the coffee table and stepped back to admire it. Once his latest rehabilitation had been completed, the one _Voyager_ had brought upon him with the help of Lieutenant Ducane, he'd traveled to the 32nd century to steal the plans for an experimental portable temporal transporter. It had been an ambitious project that proved too dangerous to pursue, and so stealing the prototype outright would have caught the attention of the temporal police and foil his plans.

And so he had simply taken a copy of the blueprints and then spent the next eleven months constructing a device on his own. It had been a challenge and was not perfect, but he had managed to build it and place it inside an elegant ebony orb, so unique that it demanded to be picked up and studied. A perfect trap. He reached forward and activated its internal mechanism.

Deep within the orb, a red glow came to life. From a distance, it resembled a captured flame that burned without benefit of oxygen, a curiosity designed to pique Janeway's interest. Close up, the flame looked like a crimson ribbon that curled and swirled around the orb's center in a steady mesmerizing pattern, a dangerous dance with serious consequences.

"Almost like a poison apple," Braxton thought, an evil grin on his face. "Irresistible."

He checked the time. Janeway would arrive at about 1540. His research indicated that she had come straight to her quarters after the hearing ended and had sent a message to her mother to inform her of the good news. He needed to leave in five minutes to avoid running into her.

His only fear was that the orb would malfunction and he would be caught and forced to undergo a third round of treatment. A test would have been advisable, but temporal transporters did not exist in this point in time, at least not in a device small enough to hold in one’s hand, and a test would light up the warning panels of the Temporal Police like a fireworks display. He would just have to take his chances, knowing that it would be a rough, even dangerous transport. Janeway deserved whatever she got.

Braxton took one last look at the quarters with its 24th Century technology. "Janeway will miss all of this," he thought to himself, with a chuckle. "So did I during my exile in the 20th Century. It's only fair that she should experience what I did." The memory of those twenty-nine years reignited his anger, but he reminded himself that because the device would transport at the same time she did, there would be no trace of where she’d gone. She would be stranded for the rest of her life—if she survived, at all. He nodded at his reflection in the apartment's window with a wink of approval.

In less than five minutes, Janeway would return to her quarters and a few minutes later send a message to her mother.

Unless, of course, she picked up the poison apple first.

With a self-satisfied laugh, Braxton beamed to his time ship and headed back to the future.

**Five minutes earlier (1525 hours) at the nearby Hall of Justice**

"Only Kathryn Janeway could be dissatisfied with a not guilty verdict," Chakotay teased as he and his captain exited the Court House and strolled toward her quarters.

"How dare they say we will have an 'insignificant impact on the timeline,'" she repeated with a sniff of irritation. She stopped to take in the late afternoon sun and shivered in the cold breeze. "I'll show them insignificant."

"I have to admit that it rankles to know that none of us will be noteworthy in the future, but, if ever there was a time to be insignificant, this is it."

The trial had taken longer than either of them had expected, spanning nearly three months. They speculated that the temporal police force was stretched thin and that their determination of impact, as they called it, was more difficult to decide upon than they had let on. And so it had been a surprise when the Commission had issued its verdict so late on a Friday afternoon.

"Free at last," Chakotay quipped. Seven of Nine had already informed him of her need to regenerate this afternoon and evening, so he found himself at loose ends. "An event like this deserves to be celebrated. How about a nice dinner at Rufio's?"

"An excellent idea, but only after we get out of these uniforms and into something less itchy." She pulled at the collar of her dress tunic with irritation.

"We could each hike to our quarters and meet at Rufio's in thirty minutes."

She started to agree, but then thought better of it. "Why bother? My place is practically next door. You can replicate some clothes while I let my mom know the good news."

"That works for me."

They made their way across the grounds in a leisurely manner, comparing notes on the members of the FTC and speculating about what era each came from.

"I almost expected Braxton to show up and testify against me," Kathryn admitted, "ranting and raving about the 'Janeway Factor' and demanding justice for all the wrongs he's experienced at my hand."

"What did you ever do to him?"

"Don't you remember? He was exiled in the 20th century for nearly thirty years after he tried to destroy _Voyager_."

Chakotay frowned. _Voyager_ had followed Braxton's ship into the temporal rift, arriving twenty-nine years after he did. Chakotay tended to overlook the three decades that Braxton survived on his own, yet could still see him as a bearded and raving homeless man posting doomsday posters all over Hermosa Beach in 1996. "If I remember correctly, he had a pretty big hand in that disaster."

"He doesn't see it that way, of course."

"Surely they've dealt with him by now. They had to know he was a loose cannon."

"He puts up a good front." She had never told him about how Braxton had booby trapped _Voyager_ while it was under construction nor the way she and Seven had traveled through time several times to foil his plans. The memory of those time "jumps" on the time ship _Relativity_ still made her queasy, and their warning for her to avoid time travel hadn’t been forgotten.

They walked into her quarters and shrugged out of their high-necked dress tunics with sighs of relief.

"I'll change in the bedroom. You can replicate some casual clothing and change here. That way we'll both be more comfortable at dinner."

"Be sure you warn me before you come back in the room," he teased. "I wouldn't want you to catch me with my pants down."

She laughed and disappeared into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Chakotay went to the replicator, which was in the kitchen, took of his uniform and decided to just recycle it. He replicated slacks and a sweater, deciding to keep his regulation boots. He absently attached his commbadge on the sweater, replicated a jacket to cover it, and then stopped at her bedroom door to give her the all clear.

"I'll just be a minute," she replied through the door.

When he walked into her living room, he stopped in his tracks. On the coffee table was a fascinating object, an opaque black orb with an impossible flame dancing in its center.

Janeway emerged from her bedroom moments later and found Chakotay sitting on the edge of the sofa, staring at the orb. "What's that?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. It looks like a flame from a distance, but close up, it's a ribbon of fire dancing around the core."

She sat close beside him, their thighs touching. "Where did it come from? It wasn't here when I left this morning."

"You've never seen it before?"

"No. It looks like there's a card under it. Maybe it's a gift that security delivered to my quarters while I was gone."

"The card probably explains everything."

Janeway picked up the trinket and pulled the card off of the bottom, handing the orb to Chakotay. "It says, 'Welcome to yesterday. Braxton.'"

"Braxton!" Chakotay looked down at the orb, which had become bright red in his hand.

"Oh my God, Chakotay, put it down!"But it was already too late.

They were gone.

**Twenty minutes earlier (1530 hours)**

Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay had made their way from the Hall of Justice to the building where her quarters were located. Their plan was to change clothes and go out for a celebratory dinner, but when the doors of the elevator opened onto what should have been the hallway of her residence, they stepped instead onto the temporal transporter pad of an advanced Starfleet vessel. Standing in front of them was an officer whose face she recognized.

"Welcome aboard the Federation Time Ship _Relativity_."

Janeway felt her vision swim and reached out for Chakotay’s arm, managing to keep herself upright and stop him from putting himself between this stranger and his captain. Gripping his elbow, she said, "I know you. You’re Lieutenant Ducane. _Captain_ Ducane, I see."

"Yes, I've been promoted since we last met."

Chakotay relaxed, but he gave Janeway a questioning look. She was pale and shaky, her eyes unfocused as if she were about to pass out. He glanced up at Ducane, “She needs to sit down.”

Ducane took Janeway’s other arm and together they helped her to his ready room and lowered her into a chair. She leaned forward to hang her head over her knees as she broke out in a cold sweat.

“What’s going on here?” Chakotay demanded, his hand resting on Janeway’s back. “Why is she suddenly sick?”

"Let me explain," Ducane replied. "She is having a normal reaction to multiple time jumps. Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine assisted us in preventing Luca Braxton from destroying _Voyager_ a couple of years ago. They experienced several temporal transports and could develop temporal psychosis, or worse, with additional time jumps."

“So why are you putting her life in danger now?”

“I assure you, Commander, that we are justified in doing this.”

Janeway looked up, her eyes focused on the captain, her normal color returning. “I’m guessing that Braxton was not happy with my acquittal.”

“You could say that.”

"Wait a minute, Kathryn." Chakotay sat down in a chair next to hers. "There was a second incident with Braxton? When?"

Janeway summarized the “ _Relativity_ Incident,” as she called it, including how they had found and destroyed the temporal disruptor Braxton had planted on Voyager with seconds to spare. She also told him about Seven’s “death” because of her multiple temporal transports and her own danger from them, as well.

“Now you tell me this,” he replied through gritted teeth.

"I'm sorry, Commander, but I was under orders." She pressed her hands against the sides of her head in an attempt to clear her mind.

"We restored the timeline, Commander, and arrested Braxton,” Ducane explained. “The fewer people who knew the truth about what ‘didn’t’ happen, the better. He was sent for another round of rehabilitation."

“Your assurance that Braxton was out of the picture was wrong. He still wants to exact revenge, doesn't he?" Janeway sat up, but was not about to stand, as yet.

“So it would seem.”

Janeway nodded. “So, what has Braxton done this time that is serious enough to kidnap us and bring us here?"

"I can only say that the two of you will be returned to Captain Janeway's quarters exactly twenty minutes after you exited the elevator. Then you will resume your lives as if this brief interruption never happened."

Chakotay frowned, “You’re ‘restoring’ the timeline again.”

“Precisely.”

"But something did happen," Janeway said, her eyes narrowed. "Something happened to us in those twenty minutes. We deserve to know what it was."

Ducane shook his head. “You have no need to know the details.”

"It was Braxton," she stated flatly, glaring at him. When Ducane remained silent, she continued, "Were we killed? Did Braxton send us to some God-awful time as punishment for our crimes?"

"Those details are classified."

"Why can't you just reintegrate us with them the way you did when Seven and I were when you took us before?"

"Because we can't, Captain. I realize that it's hard for you to deal with mysteries," Ducane replied with a small smile on his face, "but you'll probably never know what happened in those twenty minutes. Temporal Prime Directive."

"That's ridiculous!" she fumed, looking at Chakotay for support. "What if Braxton comes back? We need to know what to expect."

"Impossible, Captain." Ducane had the good grace to look remorseful, but then, with a sigh, he relented. "He's been caught and put away for good."

"I've heard this before." She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting another wave of dizziness that washed over her. "There could be unsuspected repercussions from this."

"I doubt that. No one saw either of you from the time you exited the elevator to the time we will replace you in your quarters," Ducane reassured her. "There's absolutely no change in the timeline to be worried about."

"Except that we know about this change to the timeline," she insisted. "We know something has changed."

"Nothing has changed, Captain, that will affect you or your future," Ducane repeated. "That's the point."

"Two people have disappeared."

“Not as far as the rest of the world is concerned.”

She stood up, putting a hand on Chakotay’s arm to keep her balance. "This is unacceptable."

Chakotay warned her, "You're not going to win this argument. He's not going to tell us anything more. He's probably following orders."

Janeway eyes flashed with anger. "I hate this. They have no right to do this to us."

Chakotay looked at his hands and took a deep breath. "We have to trust that they know best, I suppose. What else can we do?"

Janeway studied his face for a long moment and then turned to Ducane. "Can you promise me, unconditionally, that Braxton will never, ever interfere with our lives again?"

"All I can say is that I will do everything in my power to protect you."

Janeway bristled, but Chakotay put his hand over hers. "It's an honest answer."

Again, she paused, taking a deep breath before she relaxed. "What choice do we have?"

"None." Ducane shrugged. "I should warn you, Captain, that when I return you to your apartment building, it will be the last time jump you can take without risking serious temporal aphasia."

"I have no intention of taking any more temporal jumps, I assure you." She rubbed her temple. "I already have a headache, but I think it's as much from this mystery as it is from the side effects of the time jump."

As they started their return to the transporter, Ducane handed Chakotay a slip of paper. "It is quite likely that she will have a serious negative reaction following the return to your time. Replicate a hypospray filled with this medication formula and administer it at once. It will help her recover more quickly and might even save her life. She will be a bit unsettled for a time, but in a day or two, any after effects will be gone."

Chakotay nodded as he took the paper. The prospect of an “unsettled” Kathryn Janeway did not lift his mood.

With little more said, Ducane led them to the temporal transporter and wished them luck. Moments later, they found themselves inside her quarters, exactly twenty minutes after they had exited the elevator.

"Don't touch anything," she ordered as she looked around the room, but then, without warning, the world went black. She awakened on the floor several minutes later with her head spinning and Chakotay kneeling over her. "What happened?"

"You passed out. I replicated the medication Ducane gave me and administered it." He grasped her arm and helped her to the sofa, sitting beside her with a worried look on his face. "Are you going to be all right?"

"I think so." She leaned forward and rested her face in her hands, struggling to keep from throwing up. "God, I hate these temporal paradoxes."

"So do I."

She raised her head and looked around the room. "Is anything out of place?"

"You'd know that better than I would."

She stood, shakily, and he rose and put an arm around her waist. "Here, I'll look with you."

Janeway studied every surface, looked in every nook and cranny, but it wasn't until she entered her bedroom that she stopped in her tracks. "My clothes. This morning, I laid out some slacks and a sweater to wear after the hearing," she pointed, "right there on the bed. But they're gone."

"Where's the uniform you took off?"

"I probably hung it in the closet or put it in the refresher. Ducane wouldn't have known that the clothes were missing if I'd already put them on."

"It only proves what we already know. We were here, you changed clothes, and then we weren't here."

"Twenty minutes, gone out of our lives." She leaned into him, still dizzy. “Did he murder us? Strand us in prehistoric times? Deliver us into the hands of the Kazon? We’ll never know?”

"I can live with the mystery of it," he replied. "And with time, you will, too."

"I’m not so sure about that.” He felt her trembling. “This isn't what I wanted for us, you know. I thought we'd made it. I wanted us to get on with our lives without any bumps along the way."

"This isn't such a big bump."

"Isn't it? I know that a version of us is lost in time, and that will haunt me forever." She turned to him, tears in her eyes. She'd gone from relief at the end of the trial, just an hour before, to frustration at discovering Braxton's attack, and then to illness from the full effects of temporal aphasia. She would feel better soon, she knew that, but right now, she was exhausted and dizzy, trying not to throw up on her boots. And she knew that she had made in Braxton a truly malevolent foe. "Some insane Starfleet captain from the 29th century wants to see me dead, and he doesn't care who else he hurts to get to me."

Shaken to see her so vulnerable, Chakotay put his arms around her and marveled at the fact that she was crying into his shoulder. He tried to soothe her frazzled nerves by rubbing her back. "Ducane promised that this timeline is restored, remember? We have to believe him."

"And just go on with our lives as if nothing happened?" she wondered, her voice muffled.

"What else can we do? We are safe and happy, free to carry on with our lives. We shouldn't let anything interfere with our future."

"Maybe you’re right." She snuggled deeper into his arms, too tired and too comfortable to think about the consequences of her actions. "To be honest, I feel happy and safe right where I am.

**Part Two**

**2406 (Thirty years later)**

Admiral Kathryn Janeway activated her communication view screen and smiled at the beautiful young woman who had called. "Alicia. I was hoping it was you."

"Is this a good time for us to talk?" the young woman wondered, looking past her mother at what she could see of the room behind her. "I don't want to interrupt if you and dad are busy."

"Your father just left for a week-long mission off planet," Kathryn replied, her eyes twinkling. "You can speak freely."

"Great." Alicia leaned back in her chair and narrowed her eyes at the older woman. "He wouldn't approve of this, you know."

Kathryn shrugged. "I'm not doing anything illegal, am I?"

"Dad would say that I'm the one with access to 20th century records, not you. I'm the one working on a PhD in history."

"A minor technicality." Kathryn dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. "What harm can it do to look for people who have been dead for over four hundred years?"

"If that's true, why do you wait to do your research when he's off planet?"

"Because I don't need another lecture about abusing my privileges." She laughed, blushing. "So, did you find anything new?"

"About Shannon O'Donnell? I'm sending you some stuff, but it's the same stuff you already have only in a different database."

"I wonder if I could come over there and do some rummaging through the records. You know, look for other names, other events?"

"The dean said he didn't care as long as you don't change anything."

Kathryn looked horrified. "I wouldn't think of tampering with history."

"All evidence to the contrary,” she teased, her smile quickly fading at her mother’s narrowed eyes. Her mother didn't appreciate being blamed for something the "future" Admiral Janeway had done. Alicia held up her hands. “Just kidding, Mom. Sure, you can come up tomorrow and spend the weekend, if you want. I'm just studying."

"I'll be there at noon." She sat back and sipped her coffee. "What about your brother? What's he doing this weekend?"

"What else would you expect Arthur to be doing, weekend, weekday, holiday, or any other day?" Alicia shook her head. "He's diving off of the southern California coast with Miral Paris."

"Hermosa Beach, again?"

"He's fixated on the place, Mom. He loves to look for artifacts from the big earthquake, especially if one of the Paris kids is with him."

"You're one to talk. Aren't you getting a degree in 20th century American history? I blame Tom Paris for all of this, the way he was always filling your heads with stories about _Voyager_ 's visit to the past, sharing their music, videos, hobbies."

Alicia giggled. "I think that is a great idea, Mom. Let's blame Uncle Tom for everything."

"See you tomorrow, at noon. Don't let me find you still in bed."

"Yes, Mother."

"And have a pot of coffee ready."

"Aye-aye, Admiral."

The next morning, Kathryn beamed to the University of Eastern California where Alicia was a graduate student in history. She could have had herself deposited right outside her daughter's apartment complex, but she preferred to walk the eight blocks from the nearest station instead. She never tired of seeing the blue sky and feeling the warm sun of the high desert after so many weeks in rainy San Francisco.

To her delight, Alicia had coffee ready as well as a delicious frittata, a fresh fruit salad, and homemade bread. "You were afraid I'd forget to eat, weren't you?" she said after eating her fill.

Alicia grinned. "Don't you always do that when you're fixated on one of your missions?"

"Point taken." She took a deep breath and finished her third cup of coffee. "Now, it's been nice to visit, but can I access the data base from here? Or do I need to go on campus?"

"You can access it here. Dad's right, you know. You are definitely a workaholic."

"Don't let him kid you. He's just as bad a workaholic as I am."

Ten hours later, after Alicia had finished her work and prepared for bed, she tapped on her mother's shoulder. "Are you going to work through the night?"

"The thought had occurred to me." She turned to smile at her daughter, and then sat up in her chair, pushing the view screen away. "You're ready for bed. What time is it?"

"Midnight."

"Damn. I was supposed to call your dad tonight."

"I know. He called a couple of hours ago. I talked to him."

"Did you tell him I was here?"

"Nope. If I had, he would've wanted to talk to you, and I didn't want to hear any static about letting you browse the database. I said you had a chance to get out of the house, and left it at that. He seemed more interested in talking about the topic of my dissertation, anyway."

"He's wants you come up with a good subject, something that will put you on the map."

"Ugh." Alicia rolled her eyes. "He said to tell you he'd be in touch Monday and let you know when to expect him."

"You spoil your mother," she shut down the computer and stretched. "I should head for home."

"Why? You're going to want to spend time on this, right? You’d just be back in a few hours. I made out the sofa bed. I'll take it, and you can have my bed."

"Absolutely not." Kathryn crossed her arms, but acquiesced almost too quickly. "I'll take the sofa."

Alicia narrowed her brown eyes and laughed. "You found something, didn't you?"

"I might have. I'm not sure."

"About Shannon?"

"Someone else."

"Tell me."

"I gave up on Shannon after a couple of hours and did some 'creative' research, you know, using other names, other relatives. I found something interesting—someone named Kathryn Jane Wayman."

Alicia stared at her. "Wayman? Is that a family name I'm unaware of?"

"No, but don't you get it—Kathryn Jane Way . . . man."

"I don't know, Mom," Alicia rolled her eyes. "Seems like a reach to me."

"She just appears in the records all at once, like Venus from the sea. I couldn't find anything about her prior to her arrival, not in school databases or even government records."

"Let me guess. She rose like Venus from the sea—in 1996."

Kathryn blushed and then nodded.

"You never give up, do you?" Alicia saw the look of embarrassment on her mother's face and relented, putting an arm around her shoulders. The mystery of the lost command team had swirled around their family with as much passion as Tom had used in telling them of _Voyager_ 's brief stay in 1996 Los Angeles. "It's those missing twenty minutes, isn't it?"

"Oh, Alicia, I know you think I'm obsessed, and I probably am, I admit it." Kathryn stood up and began to pace. "I just want to know what happened to them, that's all. I want to know that they didn't suffer. I want to believe that they survived and were happy."

"And you're convinced that 1996 is where Braxton would have sent them."

"It would make sense, wouldn't it? He would think it poetic justice to strand them there, where he had been stranded, only after Henry Starling disappeared. After any chance of their return was taken from them?"

"Whatever happened, Mom, it ended four hundred years ago."

"Not in my mind. In my mind, it was just thirty years ago, Allie. I remember it like yesterday."

Alicia rubbed her face. "I'm too tired for this discussion tonight, Mom. Let's get some sleep and think about it tomorrow. But, I have to remind you that the records from those days are spotty. It may look like this Kathryn Jane . . . ?"

"Wayman."

"Kathryn Jane Wayman appeared like Venus from the sea, but it's not so odd when you consider how long ago it was. She might have been born in a rural area or a commune or somewhere overseas. She’s not the first person who shows up in the records full grown with nothing to be found about her early life.

"Oh, I know I'm grasping at straws, honey." She sat down, exhausted now that her mind was no longer focused on her work. "I just . . . I need to know."

"Oh, Mom," Alicia moved to sit beside her and put her arm around her shoulders. "I'll try to help you find out. And so will Arthur."

"Just don't tell your dad, that's all I ask. Not until we know something for sure."

"Sure. Whatever. It can be our secret."

"You're good kids. You spoil me."

"We love you, Mom, that's all."

"That's enough." Kathryn gave her a ferocious hug. "I love you, too."

"And no arguing—I'm taking the sofa."

After her mother retired to the bedroom, Alicia settled down on the sofa bed, hoping to fall asleep at once. But sleep wouldn't come. She tossed and turned, trying to come to terms with the mystery of the missing command team, if, for no other reason, to bring her mother peace of mind.

Voyager’s command team had notified Starfleet Command that another version of themselves had been kidnapped and transported to another time period, but the subsequent investigation had been inconclusive. While there were a few chroniton particles detected inside Kathryn Janeway’s quarters, there was no way to trace where the particles had come from. Ultimately, it was classified as a non-event and forgotten—by everyone but Kathryn Janeway.

The mystery was part of Alicia's family lore and a bone of contention between her parents. Alicia would love to solve it once and for all. Checking the time, she shrugged and decided that if she was awake at two in the morning, Arthur could be awake, too. As luck would have it, he'd just returned home from a party—alone, for once.

"What's up, Allie?" he wondered, still a little tipsy. "Home alone again?"

"Nope. Dad's out of town, and Mom came up for the weekend."

"Another shopping spree?"

"Research. She's sifting through the university's historical data base that she never had a 'need to know' before."

"And that you have access to because of your graduate program."

"Exactly. It's obscure old boring stuff. Telephone books. Passport and driver license records. Boring administrative details too obscure to merit inclusion in the Federation database."

"So? Did she find another picture of old Henry Janeway? Or maybe Shannon's fingerprints?"

"Arf," Alicia sighed, the name she used in their childhood, when she'd called him "Arfur," "she's focusing on 1996 again."

"The twenty minute gap." He scowled. "Allie, she's seventy-five years old, but those twenty minutes still haunt her."

"I said we'd help her."

"What can we possibly do that she hasn't tried already?"

"I don't know; I just want to be on her side. And besides, I think she has a good point. I think Braxton would have focused on 1996, and I can spend some of my time nosing around for her. It means so much to her, Arfie. I think she was almost in tears tonight."

"I think she's going soft on us, Sis, but," he rubbed his face, "I'll do what I can. I'm not sure that I can do much."

"Moral support. Oh, and don't tell Dad."

"Yeah. He's tired of hearing about it after all these years."

Allie smiled and changed the subject. "How was the party?"

"Awesome!" He spent the next ten minutes naming the attendees and describing the food served and music that was played—all drawn from the 20th Century, of course. "Uncle Tom and Aunt B'Elanna came by, too, and showed us how to do some of the dances—the swim, the twist, the mashed potato. You should have been here, Allie."

"Maybe next time, but with school starting soon, it might be awhile."

"Yeah. You should have stopped with a bachelor's degree like I did."

"That's enough for your field—marine archeology," she laughed. "You'll be back for an advanced degree, Arthur, it's in the blood."

"Probably so." He yawned. "Hey, I need some sleep. Miral and Joe Paris are coming by tomorrow."

"Hermosa Beach again?"

"Catalina Island."

"Well, don't run short of oxygen. You need to keep all the brain cells you have."

"Ha ha. Thanks for calling, Allie. Tell Mom she can count on me."

Alicia shut down the communication link and settled into the pillows, glad that she had her brother to rely on for support. She loved her mother, of that there could be no doubt, but at times she grew exasperated at her mother's single-minded determination. Her tenacity was what got _Voyager_ home from the Delta Quadrant, Uncle Tom reminded her when she complained to him, and yet—sometimes her fixation on a particular problem felt like an irrational obsession.

Her father explained that she felt as if two members of her crew had failed to make it home, and that she was guilt-ridden that their replacements were "living their lives for them."

She sighed and punched a pillow in frustration, fixing her eyes on the bedroom door and wishing that she could go inside and say something to her mother to ease her feelings of guilt and responsibility.

She might as well try to stop the tide.

**One month later**

After lunch on a Friday afternoon, Alicia was ready to go home and take a nap. She had just shut down her computer and was loading her back pack when John Markus, a fellow graduate student, stuck his head into her cubicle.

"Getting a head start on the weekend?"

Alicia nodded. "I can sleep better at home than I can here. How was the trip to Nevada?"

"Productive." Like Alicia, John was studying American history and had spent the week exploring an archive of old hard-copy magazines and newspapers that had been discovered in a cavern in the Nevada desert. "In fact, I think I found something you might be interested in."

"What's that?" She stifled a yawn.

"Aren't you focusing on 1996?"

"I have been the last few weeks, on and off. There isn't much new out there."

"'Wasn't' much out there, Allie. Past tense." He stepped into her cubicle and placed a sealed box on her desk. "I haven't opened it, so you'll need to document the contents for me, but it's clearly labeled '1996.' Other boxes like it contained all kinds of clippings and documents from the year that was printed on the outside."

"Wow!" Allie put a hand on the box protectively. "Now I’m sorry it’s Friday afternoon."

"You have a key. Come in over the weekend. Just promise to be complete in your index of the contents. Oh, and watch out. Some of the paper is pretty delicate."

"I can't believe this!" she gushed. "You're too good to me."

"Are you kidding? I have three dozen boxes just like it to go through! But, I thought this one might help you out." He gazed at her with obvious affection that she chose not to acknowledge.

"Thanks, John. I owe you one."

"Maybe dinner sometime?"

She smiled. "Sure. We'll talk Monday, okay?"

Energized by the prospect of new data, Alicia could not wait to come back the next day and get started on the tantalizing contents of the 1996 box. There had been no new information from that year in many decades, and she had despaired of helping her mother find out more about the mysterious Kathryn Jane Wayman. The name still brought a smile to her face.

Despite her excitement, it was Saturday afternoon before she was able to start the tedious job of documenting the box’s contents. Arthur and Miral had been waiting for her to arrive at her apartment the day before and had insisted on taking her to dinner in San Francisco for prawns and cioppino. She enjoyed the break from her studying and the chance to catch up with Miral, but kept the box a secret, knowing that Arthur might want to go through the contents with her—without the slow care that a historian would use.

When the box was unsealed the next day, she found some magazines that had been protected by plastic folders, their subjects ranging from sports, to fashion, to business. She numbered them one at a time, cataloged them, and set them aside so that they could be opened under controlled conditions. There were newspaper articles that had been hermetically sealed; these she read over with care, making note of the date and subject of each one. There were also a few artifacts: a keychain from the Atlanta Olympics, a patch from the World Series, several U.S. stamps and coins, a mug with a Super Bowl decal, reports on the U.S.A.’s national elections, and a couple of fragile cotton t-shirts.

However, the rest of the box held sealed containers of small plastic sheets, each one in a protective paper sleeve. She had seen pictures of this sort of technology before, but she had never held one in her hands.

"Microfiche." Alicia sat back in awe. "These could contain thousands of pages of information!"

She counted the approximate number of sleeves in each container, a task that took up the rest of her afternoon. When the box had been properly catalogued, she put everything in protective containers and then headed for home, still amazed at her good luck.

Maybe this archive could lead to the dissertation that would put her name in lights.

**Two weeks later**

"Hi, Mom, it's Alicia."

"Hello, sweetie," Kathryn replied, a huge grin on her face directed at someone off camera. "I was just thinking about you. Arthur's here with pizza from the Throwback Café, and I thought you'd love to have some with us."

"Chell's new place?"

"And Uncle Tom's pizza recipes!" Arthur stuck his head into the camera's view. "It's yummy, Allie, and we have too much for the two of us to finish. Come on over!"

"Okay," Allie agreed, her stomach grumbling. "Just the two of you?"

"Yeah, Dad’s off giving a lecture somewhere."

"The Daystrom Institute," Kathryn said, pushing her son out of the picture and giving her daughter a wink. "He's traveling a lot because he's about to publish his next book and wants to build up interest."

"How many books does this make? Twelve?" she asked, imagining how long it would take her to get dressed and arrive at her parents’ house. "I'm on my way. Save me some!"

Later, the three of them sat around the kitchen table sipping beer and gazing at two empty pizza boxes.

"I ate so much, I think I'm going to be sick," Arthur complained.

"That's part of the experience," his mother chuckled. "However, there's an anti-acid hypo in the bathroom, if you need it."

"I'm going to use it and then waddle upstairs for a nap." He stood up, burped audibly, and shambled out of the room. "See you in a couple of hours."

Alicia rolled her eyes. "I forgot what it's like to eat pizza with him."

"It's a memorable experience, all right." Kathryn put down her beer and gave her daughter a close look. "However, you didn't call me today to invite yourself to lunch, did you?"

"No, I didn't." She told her mother about the box of information from 1996, watching as the older woman grew more excited with each added detail. "It's been a hell of a lot of work, but I've gone through most of it. The process of reading each tiny microfiche without losing data was tedious, though. I had to read the table of contents for each microfiche and scan a few pages here and there to verify that it was accurate, and there were thousands of them."

"Microfiche? I don’t think I know what that is." Kathryn reached for a PADD and pulled up a description of the technology. "Ah, yes. An early data storage method made of photographic film. And it survived?"

"The cave was a good storage environment—dry, not too hot—and the containers were sealed. However, they are incredibly fragile. I've scanned each one into the computer because they're about to disintegrate." She held up an isolinear chip. "I made you a copy."

"Data from 1996?" Kathryn took the chip from her and held it in her hand, her eyes wide with wonder.

"You realize that there could be some mention of _Voyager_ here."

"There is," Alicia replied. "There are a few stills from a news report—just a blurry silver something flying across the sky."

"Dammit. I hate that. What did they say it was?"

"The usual. An experimental ship. A weather balloon. Anything plausible enough to explain it away." She patted her mother's hand. "It didn't have any long-term impact on society, if that's what you're worried about."

"I just hate that it happened, that's all. It reminds me of Braxton and those damned twenty missing minutes of my life." She looked at the chip again. "Any other interesting information?"

"If you're asking about Shannon O'Donnell, I didn't see a thing. But I haven't been through it all."

"Okay. I'll peruse this in my free time."

"My friend, John, is going through some other boxes that were found with this stuff, but his boxes were from the first half of the 21st Century. I asked him to keep an eye out for Shannon. And I even mentioned Kathryn Jane Wayman to him."

"You know, I'm a little embarrassed about that one. You were right to call it a reach."

Alicia laughed. "No harm done. I gave him a lot of names to look for, including Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay. So, who knows? Maybe something will come up."

"It will take a miracle."

"Miracles happen, Mom," Alicia reminded her. "You proved that with Voyager years ago."

**One week later**

Kathryn Janeway was taking a rare day off to deal with some personal business while her husband was once again off planet. She had endured a checkup with _Voyager_ 's EMH, now known as Joe Edwards (by random choice, he claimed), leaving with a clean bill of health for what the doctor had called her "advanced age." The checkup behind her, she walked to a nearby coffee shop for an extra-large coffee and a few hours with the new novel everyone was talking about.

She had just settled in an overstuffed chair when her commbadge chirped. "Janeway here," she answered as she thumbed through the first few pages of the book.

"Mom. It's Alicia. Where are you?"

"I'm at the coffee shop across from the art museum. Why? Where are you?"

"I came to your office. You're always here."

Kathryn smiled. "Not today! But the coffee shop isn't far. Come join me."

There was a long pause before she spoke. "I'd rather meet you at the house."

Her mother picked up on her serious tone. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I just found something you'll want to see in private."

Janeway nodded, her heart beginning to beat faster. "I'll get a to-go cup and meet you there."

"Okay. And Mom, don't worry. It's good news."

Alicia was already at the house when Kathryn arrived. After a brief hug, they sat down in the living room to talk.

"What did you find?"

"I told you that my friend, John, was going through boxes like the one I had for 1996? Well, the last one was from 2048, the year after the famous Hermosa Beach earthquake."

"Interesting. Your brother will want to look at that one."

"That's what I thought, so I asked John if I could do a quick review of the documents he found there."She stopped, as if she was afraid to go on. "I found an obituary for Kathryn Jane Wayman, of all people."

Her mother paled. "The woman I found on my random search of the university's database? The Venus rising from the sea?"

"I teased you about that, Mom, but I'll never doubt you again."

"What? I was right? It was . . . me?"

"I think so." She handed her mother the PADD with the clipping and watched her face as she read it, her eyes widening with surprise.

"She was employed by Chronowerx," Kathryn whispered. "Henry Starling's company."

"She was hired in 1998. They were about to go out of business, but she saved the company. She worked for them for over thirty years as chief of research and development." Alicia let that information sink in. "But her school background is sketchy, at best. She was home schooled, it says, so there is no record of her in any public school system—and her college work was done at a small college in Indiana."

"That has also left no records behind," Kathryn guessed.

"Exactly. Its records were destroyed in the Third World War."

"Allie, this makes so much sense. Braxton sent them to 1996, or thereabouts, so they would have to blend into society as smoothly as possible. Their backgrounds would have to be spotty, but they would have been savvy enough to ‘invent’ their past.”

“That would explain her ‘rising from the sea.’”

“Yes, and their knowledge of technology would have been centuries ahead of the times. To work at Chronowerx, with its future technology, would have been an ideal match, because its president and chief executive officer had just disappeared into thin air."

"It was an ideal situation, and they were the perfect pair to make sure things proceeded as they should.”

Janeway nodded. “The obituary says that she was responsible for hundreds of Chronowerx patents during her tenure and was credited with guiding the company through many challenges over the years. What about Chakotay? Is he mentioned anywhere?"

"There's not a word about him. The obituary says she had a life partner named Jack Ortiz, but, from what I can tell, they never married. He was an illegal alien that she sponsored for citizenship. The obituary says he was an artist and handyman, but that's all we know. He was from Mexico, and the Mexican records are even spottier than those of the United States. It would fit Chakotay well."

"Yes, it would. This says they lived together just a few blocks from Hermosa Beach itself and that they died in the earthquake." She looked up at her daughter in surprise. "They would have known it was coming, Allie. Why didn't they get to safe ground?"

"Who knows?" She grew thoughtful. "But really, think about it, Mom. They'd been there for over fifty years and would have been, what? Ninety five?"

"She would have been ninety five. Chakotay would have been ninety seven."

"Okay, that's old for those days when health care was primitive. They would have been considered quite old, nearing death."

"And they would have agreed to avoid any sort of interference in the normal progression of history," Kathryn continued for her. "They would have just . . . let it happen."

"I think so, too."

"But, Allie, this is all supposition. Are there pictures of them we could look at?"

Her daughter's frustration was clear. "Not even one, Mom, and I can understand why. They wanted to protect the future. They changed their names. Company records indicate that no photographs of either her or her partner were to be taken, and none survived, that I can find. None. Period."

"Damn."

"However, I did find a fuzzy photo of a painting supposedly done by Jack Ortiz. It's a landscape. Look at this." She changed the page on the PADD and gave it to her mother. "Notice the signature."

Janeway studied the painting for a moment and then had the PADD blow up the lower right corner. "Jack O" was clearly printed, but the next letters of his name were blurred, as if the artist had smeared the paint with the end of a paintbrush.

"I had one of our experts study the name. It isn't Ortiz, he says. It looks to him more like 'Otay.'"

Kathryn laughed. "Jack Otay. Chakotay. Jack Ortiz. It fits."

"I think that's enough proof for me," Alicia murmured. "We've found them."

Kathryn stood up and paced as she struggled to hold onto her emotions. She was relieved, after all these years, to know what had happened to them, and yet she was also overwhelmed with sadness. Her counterpart would have agonized over the fate of her beloved crew. She wouldn't have known that she and Chakotay had been "replaced" by Ducane just moments after they had disappeared. She would have worried until her dying day that the Maquis and the Equinox Five were treated fairly, the doctor recognized as a citizen, and the former Borg accepted into society.

"This painting," she said, waving the PADD. "Did it survive the earthquake?"

"It survived and was on display for years in a museum in northern California. But then the museum was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. The locals salvaged some of the contents, but much of it was lost in the fire or to pilferage. The last known record of it was over one hundred years ago."

"So it was one of the holdings that disappeared—either destroyed or stolen?"

"Afraid so."

Kathryn stood at the window a long while, staring out the window at the familiar site of the Golden Gate Bridge. An aura of sadness surrounded her, one that her daughter was reluctant to intrude upon.

"I think I need to talk to your dad, honey." She was quiet for a long time, but then managed to say, her voice husky with emotion, "All right if I keep this stuff with me? To show him?"

"Sure, Mom." Alicia stood up and gave her mother a quick hug. "He's going to say 'I told you so.' He always believed they were safe and together."

"I'm glad he was right this time," she replied, managing to smile through her tears.

**The next weekend**

The next Saturday was one of those days that make southern California famous—blue skies, bright sun, warm breezes, and breath-taking ocean views. One of the many small vessels bobbing on the calm seas carried Kathryn Janeway and her family.

"Finally," Alicia told her brother as they motored away from the dock, "it's your turn to help Mom out."

"I knew there was a reason I majored in marine archeology." He grinned at her from the helm, glancing back at his parents who lounged in the rear of the boat. "In spite of the heat, Mom is covered from head to foot like a desert nomad."

"That’s because she's the fairest of them all. God forbid she should freckle," his father commented, laughing as Kathryn punched him on the arm.

"Turn on the scanner, will you, Alicia?" said Arthur, pointing at the equipment under the helm. "It's set to boot up and start scanning automatically."

She followed his directions and watched as the equipment came online. "This underwater scanner and transporter is awesome, Arf," Allie commented as they cruised under the summer sun. "I can practically see the scales on the fish."

"Yeah," Arthur answered, "and you could beam the scales right off the fish if you wanted to."

"Are you sure that it was okay with your boss to use the boat today?" she whispered.

"When I told him that none other than the great Admiral Janeway wanted to look for something from the Hermosa Beach earthquake, he almost fell over himself to comply. We just have to inform the Historical Society if we remove anything significant from the ruins."

Alicia smiled. "Does she have any idea how much pull she has, thanks to her years on _Voyager_?"

"Oh, I think she must. She just doesn't flaunt it—unless it is necessary for her to get her way."

The morning passed without incident. Arthur guided the boat across the water on a well-defined grid, making sure to scan for the exact readings that his mother had specified. He'd explained to her how chancy this exercise was and hoped she wouldn't be too disappointed if nothing turned up.

At noon, Arthur was munching on a sandwich and piloting the boat through a particularly cluttered debris field while the rest of the family ate their food under the canopy, laughing at a funny story his father was telling. Arthur was paying more attention to the story than to the equipment, but his mother was vigilant and called his attention to an unusual reading.

"There was a spike just now," she said, getting up to join him. "See if you can find it again."

The others gathered around Arthur as he focused the scanners and located two items that fit the parameters his mother had specified.

She looked up at the others, triumphant. "I told you," she said, wagging a finger at her husband. "I told you we'd find something."

"Let's check out what we found before we start gloating," he replied, a huge grin on his face, nonetheless.

Arthur took several scans to make sure that the removal of these articles wouldn't compromise the surrounding seabed. "They look to be inside some sort of metal box. I think I can beam them out of the box without disturbing the surrounding seabed."

"Then, do it," Kathryn ordered, unaware that she was using her "admiral" voice.

"Aye, Admiral," replied Arthur, giving his dad and sister a wink.

The boat rocked gently as Arthur locked the transporter on the articles, double checked his readings, and then reached to activate the beam-out. Alicia caught his hand by the wrist. "Arf, let Mom do it."

He stepped aside and gestured for his mother to step in. "They'll materialize on top of the helm.”

"Here we go." With trembling fingers, Kathryn activated the transporter. An instant later, two outdated Starfleet commbadges appeared on the console.

"We did it!" Arthur crowed, jumping up and down with excitement.

"You can start gloating now, Mom!" Alicia agreed, pumping her arms in the air.

Their parents, however, seemed oblivious to their children's celebration, their eyes fixed on the two small devices. After a long moment, Kathryn picked up one of the commbadges and turned it over in her hand. "This one is mine."

"So that makes this one mine," Chakotay replied, picking up the second one.

"They're in bad shape, honey." She pressed the badge, but there was no chirp in response. "They don't work."

"They've been underwater for over four hundred years."

"Yes, of course, but it's just so strange to see them. We have these very same commbadges in a desk drawer at home."

The twins retreated to the back of the boat as their parents talked. After a few minutes, Kathryn turned to them and said, "We can head back now, kids. We have what we came for."

Arthur turned off the scanning equipment and secured it before starting the engine and heading for the dock.

"No doubt you need to report this find to your historical society, Arthur," Kathryn remarked as they motored through the choppy surf. ”But first let me clear it through Temporal Operations. They have classified those twenty minutes as a 'non-event' and might not be happy that we’ve recovered two artifacts that prove it did happen.”

“Sure, Mom. They’re used to me dragging things in now and then. Just let me know.”

"I don’t see this event making the history books," Alicia said.

"It should be part of history," Chakotay replied. "They made a difference during their years in the 21st Century. They're part of our history, and they should be credited for their efforts."

Kathryn sighed. "We’ll just have to see what Temporal Operations decides."

"In the meantime, Mom," Alicia added, "I think you should keep them. In a real sense, they belong to you."

"I guess they do." She turned to Chakotay and dropped her commbadge into his hand. "I found out what I wanted to know. Let's go home."

"Sure." Chakotay put the commbadges in his pocket. "I hope the weather is as pretty in San Francisco as it is here."

"You've just jinxed us, you know," she quipped.

Alicia and Arthur volunteered to tie up the boat and take care of the equipment so that their parents could leave at once. They could tell that their mother was worn out from the sunshine, fresh air, and emotional strain of their hours on the water. As they watched them walk out of the marina hand-in-hand, Alicia sighed.

"After nearly thirty years of marriage, they still hold hands. It's so sweet."

"And not just in this timeline, I'll bet you." Arthur looked up from his work, his eyes locking with his sister's. "These same two people—the very same people—were also together four hundred years ago. Get your mind around that."

"It's romantic, don't you think?" she said, a goofy grin on her face. "Like they were destined to be lovers, in every timeline."

"Lovers?! Please, Alicia!" He made a face. "We're talking about our parents here!"

"You're such a goof ball, Arthur."

"Did you send them the gift?" he wondered as he loaded the portable scanner onto an anti-gravity pallet.

"Yeah. It's supposed to arrive later today. Hope they like it."

"They will. It's just the sort of sappy sentimental stuff they go for."

Alicia shook her head. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Nothing," he grinned. "You have to accept me as I am. That's what families do."

"Just my luck."

An hour later, Kathryn and Chakotay arrived in San Francisco to find that the weather reflected Kathryn’s melancholy mood. They had left the blue skies, warm breezes, and sunshine of southern California for the Bay area’s cold drizzle, slate black clouds, and fog.

Chakotay kept his mouth shut. He'd learned years earlier to let her to have her moments of brooding without interrupting, but even so he watched her. The mystery of the missing twenty minutes might have been solved, but she still needed to come to terms with it. She'd been uncharacteristically emotional in the week since Kathryn Jane Wayman's obituary had been found, and he worried it would take another thirty years for her to come to terms with the truth.

When they arrived at home, chilled to the bone, the house was clammy cold. Kathryn headed upstairs for a sweater while Chakotay put a fire in the fireplace and fixed some warm drinks.

A half hour later, they sat together in front of the fire with four outdated commbadges lined up on the coffee table. She sipped coffee, while he had his usual herbal tea, and they both pondered the significance of their discovery.

"You've been quieter than usual since we found the commbadges."

"I keep trying to imagine what they went through, that's all." She shifted on the sofa to face him. "Those two people were us, Chakotay, you and me."

"I realize that."

"Not duplicates, not someone just like us. Us. The very same people who were in that elevator and snatched away by Ducane were the ones Braxton sent four hundred years into the past."

He waited a moment. "It's a strange feeling to know that we have lived two separate lives."

She stood up and began to pace, back and forth in front of the fireplace. "Imagine it. Think it through. They didn't know what happened to their crew. They didn't know that Ducane replaced them with us just moments after they disappeared.” She stopped and looked at him. “Why? Why didn't he bring them back, instead? Seven and I were reintegrated with our previous selves after we visited the _Relativity_."

"We’ve talked about this. We’ve come up with explanations before." He was quiet a moment and then realized she needed to go over this again. "I don’t think Ducane knew where they were, or when they were, as soon as he needed to. Because of that confusion, he couldn't bring them back soon enough to avoid compromising both timelines. Braxton was an expert at this stuff, and he knew how to cover his tracks and hide their location. He wanted to be sure that she was well and permanently stranded in the past."

"Maybe." She looked skeptical. She'd seen how the _Relativity_ could travel through time and knew that Ducane could have inserted them smoothly into the timeline no matter how much time had passed—but only if he knew where and when they had gone.

"Also, the time cops might have discovered that they made a tremendous difference in the 21st century."

Her eyes narrowed as she considered this new possibility, one that had only become clear when Alicia had found Kathryn Wayman’s obituary. "Starling left Chronowerx in shambles, not to mention abandoning future technology that could have been dangerous in the wrong hands. They were there to make sure history evolved as it should, and they made sure that technology didn’t fall into the wrong hands."

"Maybe. I don't know for sure, but it makes sense to me."

"There's another possibility that's even more likely, you know. You remember how bad my reaction was when Ducane returned us to my quarters that day—and that was with well-constructed temporal transporters.”

Chakotay nodded. “I thought you might die before I could replicate the medication. Scared me half to death.”

“Braxton was there on the _Relativity._ He knew I had to avoid time travel or suffer serious consequences. Maybe Ducane found me but had to leave me there.” She shook her head. “Braxton would have suspected that she would be stranded wherever, or whenever, the transport left her. He knew it and counted on it. That might explain why she stayed in 1996, but what about Chakotay? He could have been reintegrated into this century, I’m sure.”

"And leave her behind? Even if Ducane had found them and had offered Chakotay the chance to return, he would never have left her alone in the twentieth century.”

"But he would have had his relationship with Seven to think of.”

“I’ve explained a dozen times how new that relationship was, Kathryn. I really wasn’t sure I wanted to keep dating her.”

“It seems that we always hit upon bad luck."

"No, this time they were lucky. Because they were together, they were more than capable of surviving and succeeding in whatever time they inhabited."

She grinned and shook her head, returning to the sofa and picking up her coffee mug. "You really believe that, don't you?"

"I do. We've proven it dozens of times over the years, and they've proven it, too. They could rely on each other, figure out how to fit in, and arrange their lives so that they could actually be productive members of society."

"And they could have comforted each other over all they'd lost." She took a deep breath and leaned forward, burying her face in her hands. "To work so hard for seven years to get home, to risk losing the ship and crew time and again, only to have it ripped away from them so cruelly just as they could begin to think of the future. It breaks my heart."

He rubbed her back. "I'm sure they wondered what happened to the crew for a long time. Knowing you and how long you worried about the two of them, maybe a long, long time."

Kathryn laughed and leaned back to give him a grin. "I'm sorry I've been so fixated on this for all these years."

"It's okay. I understand. But I always believed that if they survived the transport, she would have moved on eventually.”

“He would have seen to that. She would have committed herself to her new mission of guiding Chronowerx into the future and fitting into her new time.”

“I think you’re right.”

"So you don't feel sorry for either of them? Not Chakotay, either?"

"I'm not going to feel sorry for any Chakotay who gets to live his life next to you."

A corner of her mouth twitched with a lopsided smile. "You keep saying things like that, and you're going to get lucky tonight."

Relieved that she was beginning to joke about the situation, Chakotay leaned in for a kiss, his lips touching hers tenderly. "I'm lucky every night," he whispered.

The moment was interrupted by the doorbell.

"Who could that be?" she wondered as he headed for the door. "Everyone thinks we're in Los Angeles for the day."

He returned carrying a small box in his hands. "It's from our children."

"What? It isn't my birthday. Or yours."

"And our anniversary was two months ago." He studied the flat rectangular box and then sat down beside her, pulling off the paper and the bubble wrap that protected . . . a small painting. Chakotay held it up for closer inspection.

"Chakotay, it's your painting. Or, to be more exact, it's his painting. It’s the one that Alicia found in her research." She touched the frame. "She told me that it disappeared when a museum burned over a hundred years ago."

He studied the landscape. "The trees seem peculiar. Could it be a jungle scene?"

"Maybe. Or an alien planet. He visited a lot of those, you know." She grinned at him. "But that white flower, the one with the deep red center, seems familiar."

"The signature, of course, is off."

"Right."

He turned the painting over. "Here's a stock number 49690 and some really faint writing."

She turned on the reading lamp so they could see the writing better. After a couple of minutes, she laid the painting on her lap, her eyes wide with surprise.

"What's wrong?"

"That isn't a stock number. It's a star date, and it coincides with the title he gave the painting." She pointed at the faint writing. "New Earth."

They turned the painting back over for a closer look, and, sure enough, the title was correct—it was a painting of their personal "Eden" in the Delta Quadrant.

"That explains the unusual trees," she pointed out.

"It's the bank of the river where we swam," murmured Chakotay. "Remember the tree that shaded the pool? And this is the rock ledge where you used to dry off in the sun."

"That flower with the red center. We called it dragon's blood, because of the vicious thorns on the stems." She gestured to what would have been to the right of the painting. "Over here was my bathtub and then the cabin. He remembered it all without the help of any of the pictures we took."

"Of course, he did. It's still a vivid memory to me—the best moments of my life out of seven long years on _Voyager_."

"Really?" she said, brushing away tears. "The best moments?"

He slid an arm around her shoulders. "Bar none."

Kathryn snuggled into his side and gazed at the painting, dragging her finger over the rough brush strokes. "Isn't it a wonderful gift? Alicia knew how much it would mean to us. I just wonder how she found it."

"She shows flashes of the legendary Janeway tenacity," he teased.

"They held this in their hands, Chakotay. It probably hung in place of honor their house."

"In their bedroom," he guessed. "To remind them of those wonderful days together."

"We'll hang it in our bedroom, too. It's a miracle, isn’t it? That something from four hundred years ago survived in decent condition?"

"They would have sold it, before the earthquake, to get it out of the danger zone. Maybe they hoped it would be a lasting memento of their existence."

"Could you do it? Stay in that part of California when you knew that the clock was ticking down to your certain death?" She shivered. "I can't imagine the courage that took."

"By that time, they were used to watching horrible historic events happen. This would have been the last in a long line of disasters that they had to witness without doing anything to prevent them." He nuzzled her hair. "Anyway, they would have been quite old for that era. Perhaps they were ill, facing death anyway."

"So why not choose how you go?"

"And go together. All they had was each other."

"No twins."

"It was just too chancy, I suppose."

A thoughtful look on her face, she said, "Okay, then. I'm letting them go."

Chakotay placed a hand on his chest. "Be still my heart. You're no longer going to obsess over those missing twenty minutes and what happened to Kathryn and Chakotay?"

"Nope, and do you want to know why?" At his nod, she chuckled. "Braxton wanted to strand me alone in the 20th century where he'd lived as a homeless wild man, solitary and lost. Instead, he sent me there with you at my side, and we stayed together for the rest of our lives. I'm not going to feel bad about them any longer."

"I'm glad. We know now that they were productive people who prospered and made a difference."

"Yes, they did. But he also brought us together in this timeline. Without his interference, we would have gone to dinner that night and parted as friends. Who knows whether we would have explored our feelings for each other?"

"I like to think that we would have, but it might have taken a while to unfold. For one thing, there wouldn't have been that electrifying kiss in your bedroom to get things started."

"Oh, yes. Right after Ducane returned us to the apartment." She smiled at the memory.

_Shaken to see her so vulnerable, Chakotay put his arms around her and marveled at the fact that she was crying into his shoulder. He tried to soothe her frazzled nerves by rubbing her back. "Ducane promised that this timeline is restored, remember? We have to believe him."_

_"And just go on with our lives as if nothing happened?" she wondered, her voice muffled._

_"What else can we do? We are safe and happy, free to carry on with our lives. We shouldn't let anything interfere with our future."_

_"Maybe you’re right." She snuggled deeper into his arms, too tired and too comfortable to think about the consequences of her actions. "To be honest, I feel happy and safe right where I am."_

_Chakotay was surprised at the subtle change in her embrace and at the way she molded her body to his. In the last several weeks, as the debriefings had begun to wind down, they had moved away from their roles of captain and commander and toward being very good friends. He took her lingering embrace as another sign of their reemerging affection for each other. In response, he laid his head against her hair._

" _He won't desert her, you know," he murmured, his breath warm on her ear. "Wherever or whenever they are, he'll be right beside her. She isn't alone. And neither are you."_

_She looked up at him, cupping his face with her hand. Her eyes shone with affection and glittered with unshed tears, and she found herself too moved by his devotion to speak._

_He could think of nothing else to do but to lower his head and kiss her._

She gave him a crooked grin. "You caught me at a moment of weakness, you know. I was still reeling from that last time jump and, thank God, you took advantage of the moment." She rested her head on his shoulder. "It was an electrifying kiss, wasn't it?"

"I remember it to this day. That kiss kept me awake for many nights, trying to think of a way to convince you that I was in love with you, not Seven of Nine."

"I'm glad you finally got that message through my thick skull," she chuckled. "I loved you, too, but didn't want to destroy your chances with Seven."

"You know, in some ways, we owe that guy a debt of gratitude."

"Ironic, isn't it?" she sighed as he put an arm around her shoulders and she burrowed into his side. "Braxton wanted to trap me alone in the past, but, instead, he brought us together-not once, but twice."

Chakotay smiled and pulled her closer. "Take that, Captain Braxton."

The End


End file.
